Garden Exploration: A Golden Afternoon at Green-Wood Cemetery

Photography by Valery Rizzo for Gardenista

Five years ago, Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn teamed up with Cornell University to focus on developing “intelligent and climate-sensitive strategies for grassland preservation and restoration.” Happily, with a dynamic landscape comes plenty of atmosphere:

Native seed mixes eliminate the need for precipitous mowing on slopes.

Traditional fescue grass is in competition with rhizomatic Bermuda grass. Adapted to thrive in a tropical climate, it goes a churlish brown when the temperatures inevitably drop in Brooklyn.

Green-Wood is an early example of the rural cemetery movement in the mid-19th century.

The cemetery is a monument to the history of New York, as well as some of its most iconic figures. Residents include Leonard Bernstein and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

A landscape that is more relaxed easily accommodates tufty greenery between awkward spaces.

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